Iraq Inquiry protest: blood on whose hands?

Anti-war campaigners have called for Tony Blair and George Bush to be be tried for war crimes as the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war opened in London.

As proceedings got under way at the Elizabeth II Conference Centre at Westminster, the consensus among the protesters was that a more appropriate venue would have been The Hague.

Sir John Chilcot and his panel opened the inquiry yesterday morning amid a media circus but concerns had already been expressed about the transparency of the proceedings and the independence of the inquiry.

Anti-war campaigners wearing Bush, Blair and Brown masks and clutching fistfuls of bloodstained dollars made their protest heard outside the venue, a mere stone's throw from Parliament itself.

They were accompanied by Sabah Jawad of Iraqi Democrats Against the Occupation, who told the Star: "This should not be another whitewash. We have had inquiries in the past and nothing has come out of it. This is merely the Establishment investigating the Establishment."

He also doubted whether any lessons would be learned.

"The British government has not learned," he said. "They are doing now in Afghanistan exactly what they did in Iraq.

Behind bars

"Blair and Bush should be sent to The Hague. The right place for them is behind bars and they should throw away the key."

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German, who also attended the protest, added: "This is an inquiry being conducted by five knights and a baroness.

"We have no confidence that they will challenge the Establishment.

"In the meantime, we are seeing evidence of more and more atrocities emerging from Iraq.

"The secretary of state is to announce another public inquiry into the so-called 'Danny Boy' incident where 20 Iraqis were killed. It was claimed they died during a fire-fight but now there is evidence they were tortured and murdered.

"Even though most of our troops are out of Iraq now, our government isn't and the mercenaries aren't."

The inquiry heard evidence from the former Joint Intelligence Committee chairman that the Bush administration had discussed regime change in Iraq at least two years before the invasion in 2003.

Sir Peter Ricketts said that both London and Washington were concerned about the existing policy regarding Iraq and that a review of Britain's policy was already under way before former president George W Bush had been even sworn in.

But Mr Jawad pointed out that "the inquiry chair has said this will be about drawing lessons for the future - there will be no accountability or blame apportioned to those people who took the decision to wage this devastating war on the people of Iraq."

He added: "As a result of that decision, more than one million people are dead and many more millions orphaned or widowed.

"The inquiry team should visit Baghdad and see what has been done there and listen to the voices of the Iraqi people."